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Auckland Council “Loot Sharing” Plan Slammed

A property developer has spoken out against Auckland Council’s plan to tax increases in the value of land from rezoning or redevelopment. The council’s proposal for “shared land value uplift,” buried in an addendum to the mammoth Auckland unitary plan, is a tool the council is considering for “enabling affordable neighbourhoods,” the document says.

“A number of countries provide scope for local councils to obtain part of the land value uplift from landowners when land is rezoned for more intensive use for example, rezoning from rural to urban land use or rezoning from a low to a higher density).” The revenue generated could be used to develop affordable housing or to fund infrastructure and amenities, the document says. But Auckland-based property developer “Tim Manning says taxing land value increases would make development more expensive and drive it out of the city to other regions. The proposal ignores that getting land rezoned can be an expensive process, including holding costs such as interest payments if there is debt, he says. “You have really got to work at this; you need to hire planners and planning barristers, do traffic reports and impact assessment reports to show this land is better off residential than commercial or rural.”

The real problems are the small number of large developers, the lack of land available for residential subdivision and the tight supply of funding, Mr Tim Manning says.

Councillor Cameron Brewer says there would be “enormous contestability and difficulty” in accurately calculating a property’s new value after rezoning has taken place.